A homeowner put down a deposit on a new house using an app, in what is
believed to be a world first

The app, created by Barclays and Savills Auctions, was used by a customer to pay the £23,000 deposit on a new home in Mitcham, South London.

The partnership will enable more potential homeowners to buy properties using their smartphones by scanning a Savills QR code from within the Pingit app. The app will then show the full transaction details name and once the customer selects the ‘OK’ option, the money is transferred in seconds.

Since its launch in February 2012, Barclays Pingit has been used to transfer £350 million, and has been downloaded 2.5 million times.

Darren Foulds, Barclays Mobile Banking and Pingit Product Director, said given that almost everyone in the UK carries a phone on a permanent basis, the service offered a practical and secure way of transferring money.

In 2013, Pingit was updated to include a QR code reader that enabled shoppers to buy items simply by scanning a code – for example in an advert or in a shop – to make a payment and have items sent direct to their home address.

The app has also being embraced by a growing number of small businesses that want to be able to accept mobile payments but have decided against investing in credit card payment systems.

The Centre for Economic and Business Research predicts 20 million adults will use their mobiles to pay for goods and services by 2020, and for the total value of mobile payments to reach £18.1 billion by 2018 (the combined value of all mobile payments and bank-to-bank transfers).